


Rescue

by quigonejinn



Category: Captain America, Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-04
Updated: 2013-03-04
Packaged: 2017-12-04 06:43:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/707728
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quigonejinn/pseuds/quigonejinn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Steve Rogers has asked, six or seven or eighteen hundred times, for Bucky Barnes to stop coming to his rescue like that. </i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	Rescue

**Author's Note:**

> General warning for disturbing content, specific warning for self-harm. This is not a happy fic.

1.

Steve Rogers has asked, six or seven or eighteen hundred times, for Bucky Barnes to stop coming to his rescue like that. He finds it embarrassing and humiliating and, as a matter of fact, unnecessary. What's the worst that will happen to him? He'll get a bloody nose and punched some. Maybe kicked. Still, every time he can manage it, Bucky strolls in swinging. If he doesn't have a line about picking on somebody your own size, he has something like, _why don't you try hitting someone who can hit you back_. 

You can see why Steve finds this embarrassing and humiliating, but Bucky keeps on doing it, partially because Steve is a little shit who can't keep his mouth shut, and partially because even though Steve is a little shit who can't keep his mouth shut, he usually has a point. the people who are punching Steve (or kicking him or holding him against the wall or holding him, head-down, in a trash can) are, generally, assholes around the neighborhood who are richly deserving of getting punched themselves. 

Partially, too, Bucky Barnes just loves getting into a fight. 

He loves being the rescuer. 

2.

When Steve Rogers comes to get Bucky in the factory, Bucky isn't sure what he's seeing. Sure, they have a little joke about Steve getting taller, but Bucky, at that point, knows he is delirious. They've been giving him shots for days. He hears voices. Sees lights. Has strange dreams of burning buildings and screaming and monsters in the shadows. When he wakes from the dreams of fire and pain and what he is becoming, Bucky finds actual, real pain under the instruments of a small, soft-looking man who speaks almost perfect English. 

Bucky is half-convinced that Steve is part of another dream. Isn't the building burning? Isn't there screaming?

In the hallway, Steve hesitates at an intersection. "Which way?" he shouts to Bucky, as if Bucky hasn't spent the past -- however many days strapped to a table inside a room with high walls, screaming and begging to do anything and everything Zola wants, tell him anything he wants to know, if only Zola make the pain stop. 

"Which way?" Steve repeats.

"Linke," Bucky says, gesturing to their left with the hand he doesn't have around Steve's shoulders. "Ich denke." 

Steve stops dead in his tracks. He looks Bucky in the face for a long, long moment. 

Until that look, Bucky doesn't know what came out of his mouth. 

3.

Bucky is lying when he says that he's following the kid from Brooklyn, and Steve knows it. Instead, Bucky is following a chance to kill agents of an organization that starved and tortured him when they were being kind and used him as a subject for scientific experimentation when they weren't. Bucky has a memory of screaming, begging Zola, telling Zola he would do anything Zola wanted him to do, tell him anything he wanted to if only Zola would put a bullet in Bucky's brain afterwards. 

Then, after that, came the time when Bucky didn't have words to use for begging anymore: pain filled the world and had a purpose of its own. 

Bucky liked being the rescuer, not the one who was rescued. 

4\. 

What is Bucky going to do after the war is over? Steve has a place. Tall, strong, charismatic. People instinctively trust him and want to do what he tells them. What is Bucky going to do? Take the boat home, find a job, get married? After a year of fighting next to each other, the other Commandos still don't trust him -- they trusted him more in the beginning, but they trust him less now. He speaks German. When did he learn German? He is a sniper. Where, in his file, did it say that he received sniper training, or was even a good shot? Most importantly to them, he uses more force than necessary in getting information or herding captured prisoners, and the Commandos are, by and large, honorable Americans of conscience. 

So what is Bucky going to do once the war is done? How long are others going to be willing to cover for him? 

Steve knows that Bucky worries about this. He worries about it, too.

5\. 

On a train in the mountains, Bucky thinks he has the answer to all of these questions. Simple, quick, easy. A single moment of courage. An instance of bravery. Can he manage that for Steve?

He thinks he can: when he gets knocked out of the car, he tries to reach Steve's hand. Then, he realizes, in a flash, that this is it. A single moment of courage. An instance of real bravery.

So he lets go. 

He regrets it immediately. His courage fails him; his bravery isn't there. Bucky realizes he can't even commit suicide with grace, and Steve sees it pass over Bucky's face. Regret. Fear. Self-loathing. More fear. Bucky is screaming, and Steve can't do a thing. 

He watches, though, until the speck of blue is on the verge of disappearing into the white. 

Then, he turns his face into the side of the car.


End file.
